THOUSANDS PAY TRIBUTE TO SOLDIERS KILLED IN JET
By JAMES BARRON, Special to the New York Times
Published: December 21, 1985

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky., Dec. 20— Standing at attention on a snowy parade ground, 17,000 troops paid homage today to the 248 American soldiers killed in the crash of a chartered airliner in Gander, Newfoundland, a week ago.
The emotional 40-minute ceremony by the 101st Airborne Division ended with ''Taps'' and four Air Force jets flying in the ''missing man'' formation. in which one jet pulls up and away from the others in a low pass over the field. An estimated 4,000 civilians were on hand in weather so cold that Army ushers brought out wool blankets for the victims' families.
After an invocation and a reading from the book of Isaiah, the commanding general of the 101st, Burton D. Patrick, told the soldiers that the deaths of the 248 were ''a loss of indescribable proportions.''
He added that the tragedy had ''cast a dark cloud over Fort Campbell and the homes of other families throughout the land.''
'Our Hearts Reach Out'
He was followed by the Army Chief of Staff, Gen. John A. Wickham Jr., who said, ''Our hearts reach out to every soul here who feels the sorrow.''
''I have lost as much as you have,'' General Wickham said, ''and I know the depth of your hurt.''
The soldiers who died aboard the chartered Arrow Air DC-8 were returning from duty with a multinational peacekeeping force unit in the Sinai Peninsula. General Patrick praised them for having done their jobs ''so efficiently, effectively and quietly that the general public didn't even realize that they were there.''
Echoing that theme, the Secretary of the Army, John O. Marsh Jr., said, ''We often take for granted the quiet, unsung duties of others who perform for us.''
''Then tragedy strikes and it shocks us into awareness,'' he said. ''They were the peacemakers, and for them we grieve.''
In the reviewing stand for the ceremony were Lieut. Gen. Egil J. Ingebrigston of Norway, commander of the multinational force; El Sayed Shalaby, the second-ranking diplomat at the Egyptian Embassy in Washington, and H. Ross Perot, the chairman of Electronic Data Systems of Dallas.
Army spokesmen said Mr. Perot, who organized a paramilitary rescue mission when some of his employees were taken hostage in Iran in 1978, had no special ties to the 101st but had asked to attend the ceremony.
In all, 975 soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division were sent to the Sinai last June. The soldiers who died would have been the third contingent to return home for holiday leave. The fourth and final group arrived Thursday.
In the days after the accident, two chapels on the base stayed open all night, and clergy were on call around the clock. Officials tried to maintain normal operations while helping the victims' families deal with their losses. But soldier after soldier, from general to private, said it had not been easy.
''We took it pretty hard,'' Pfc. John McDonough of Gloucester, Mass., said today. ''It's hard to accept.''
The day began here today with an artillery salute that lasted more than four hours as a line of six 102-millimeter howitzers fired one blast a minute, for each of the 248 dead soldiers. Capt. Stephen J. Polchek read each of the victims' names as the tribute boomed across the sprawling base, which straddles the Tennessee-Kentucky border.
The Signs of Grief
As they drove to the post for the ceremony, the families saw messages of the grief that the crash brought to this community. In a quarter-mile stretch along the road between Fort Campbell and the nearby town of Clarksville, Tenn., a bar posted a sign that read, ''Our Deepest Sympathy to the Families of the 101st.''
On the parade ground, the Sinai task force members who made it home for Christmas stood in front of the other batallions, wearing green Army parkas over their tan desert uniforms.
Col. Lewis Millett, a retired officer whose son John was on the jet, said he did not hold the Army responsible for his son's death. Colonel Millet described himself as a Congressional Medal of Honor winner who led the Army's last bayonet charge, in Korea.
''It's hard to take,'' he said. ''If anyone is responsible, it's someone in the airline industry. If they are culpable, they should be punished.''